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Saturday Night Fever
December 16 1977
(Page 2)
The movie's dancing scenes have been shrewdly constructed to go those on "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train" one better. In addition to providing a dazzling sound and light show, each "Saturday Night Fever" dancing scene contains a new story element. So we watch the dancing to follow the story line.
Nowhere is this better displayed than in a climactic scene in "Saturday Night Fever." (Don't worry, reading about it won't ruin the movie, which runs on for another 20 minutes.) Tony Manero's life changes when he spots a beautiful girl one night at the disco. A major chunk of the story involves Tony trying to make it with this girl (played by Karen Gorney, who was Tara on the TV soap opera "All My Children").
Stephanie, her character, is a person very much like Tony, with one striking difference. She's made it out of Brooklyn and into Manhattan. She works as a secretary in a talent agency. She meets a lot of big shots. She hesitates to get involved with Tony because she sees life with him as a throwback to the drab blue-collar life she has escaped.
To win Stephanie, Tony invites her to be his partner in his local club's annual dance contest. First prize: $500. They have to practice dancing together. But that's all that Stephanie wants. No sex.
Eventually, on the dance floor of the disco, in one of the film's climactic scenes their relationship will change. All of a sudden during the dance contest. Tony slows down. He begins dancing with Stephanie and stops dancing for the crowd. In that moment, director John Badham cleverly tightens his focus on Tony and Stephanie. The background crowd becomes blurred. The dance sequence tells us what's important to the main characters-each other.
To be sure, "Saturday Night Fever" has its weaknesses. The ending is unsatisfactorily sweet. Travolta himself thinks so and tried to have it changed. And, at the very beginning of the film, Travolta seemingly puts on a false, guttural "deese, dem, and dose" accent that smacks the Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront." The accent disappears in later scenes, and Travolta told The Tribune that he had a cold on the day they shot that opening dialog scene. "The cold made me sound that way," he said.
More important, the film's script-written by "Serpico" screenplay author Norman Wexler and based on a New York magazine article ("Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night") by Nik Cohn-is a derivative mix of "Rocky" and "Mean Streets." "Saturday Night Fever" borrows the overwrought working class milieu of "Rocky" and the street gang violence of "Mean Streets."
But maybe that's quibbling too much. "Saturday Night Fever" is a lot rougher and more real than we might expect it to be. Here is John Travolta, TV star, darling of millions of young kids, in an R-rated picture that takes a couple of powerful shots at religion and at teen-age materialism.
As with so many other television properties, Travolta could have elected to play his first movie safely. Instead, at age 23, he gambled on an energetic, gutsy little movie, and he won.
Film Note: "Saturday Night Fever" is going to be a very popular motion picture, especially with the teen-age audience. Parents should be aware of the fact that, despite the film's "R" rating (persons under 17 not admitted unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian), it will be the rare theater owner, I predict, who, faced with long lines, will demand to see identification from his potential audience. Be aware: This film is spiked with graphic sex and violence.
Gene Siskel
Review © 1977 THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. All Rights Reserved.
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